


miles to go

by Poe



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Dream Sharing, M/M, Originally written for a big bang I think?, Soulmates, reuploaded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 08:25:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15553641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poe/pseuds/Poe
Summary: Every night to the meadow, where everything is bathed in orange, kissing skin like some tender lover, the grass beneath his feet soft and yielding, dust motes catching the dying rays of the sun, this place is a dream, a hum of the meadow settling and yawning around him. His eyes grow heavy, the soft breeze lulling him to sleep, and so he lays himself down and curls onto his side, blinking once, twice, and just, as his vision gets too blurry to see, he spots him. The meadow falls away, and once again, the man is gone.





	miles to go

_Every night to the meadow, where everything is bathed in orange, kissing skin like some tender lover, the grass beneath his feet soft and yielding, dust motes catching the dying rays of the sun, this place is a dream, a hum of the meadow settling and yawning around him. His eyes grow heavy, the soft breeze lulling him to sleep, and so he lays himself down and curls onto his side, blinking once, twice, and just, as his vision gets too blurry to see, he spots him. The meadow falls away, and once again, the man is gone._

Steve Rogers wakes up from the same dream he’s had since he was fifteen years old. The same meadow, the same startling sense of realness, it is as real to him as his waking life. And on the edges of it, every time, growing older with him every year, there is a man sitting by his side as he falls asleep. A man who knows him, a man who follows Steve’s thoughts into the waking world, a man Steve has never seen clearly. And yet, this man has a permanence in Steve’s life that nobody else has ever done. He remains, on the edges of consciousness, something akin to a protector, something akin to a lover.

Steve shakes himself. Rubs the sleep from his eyes. It has been a decade and the man is no clearer to him than he’d been when they’d both been young. He isn’t even real. And yet – Steve feels the ache of loss every morning. Something precious is taken from him when he opens his eyes, something deep in his gut clenches and he almost keens at the pain of it.

How can he know, he wonders, that if they were to meet, outside of the hazy soft of the dream world, that they would be anything but strangers? And yet, he feels it, the same way he knows that the meadow is as real a place as anywhere he’s ever been. The man in his dreams is real, has to be real, and he exists, in the waking world, and for whatever reason he hasn’t found Steve yet, but Steve knows, one day, on a busy street, there will be a stranger, and he will be instantly familiar, and then they’ll meet in a realm where speech isn’t garbled and the world is less perfect, less soft.

Steve holds onto this like a chain around his neck. The only religion he’s ever known aside from his mother’s prayers when he was a sickly child, plagued with sweat hot fever dreams and the promise of never, ever growing up. And here he is, twenty five years old and still dreaming, still carrying hope like the heavens on his back. His ma has long since passed, leaving him everything she’d ever owned, a small apartment, a small amount of money, and a lifetime of love. And in her place, a boy who turned into a man, guarding him as he slumbers. He wonders if it is compromise, something gained for something lost. It is not so hard to imagine. Steve has always been good at imagining.

Pushing the blankets away, he takes in the sight of his jutting, awkward knees, the blond gold dust hair that scatters his calves, the way his feet look too small and alien to be human, sitting there at the ends of his legs like some strange poorly drawn caricature of anatomy. He scrunches his toes. _This is real_ , he reminds himself, and swings his legs over the side of the bed. _This is the real world_.

Unfortunately.

He’s not unhappy, per se, he thinks to himself as he wanders through to the bathroom to go about his morning routine. He just – lacks. There is something missing, something vital and brilliant, something only found when he is unconscious. And he doesn’t quite know how to deal with that.

He looks up at the mirror, reflecting back the corn yellow hair that sticks up at random, rarely tamed despite the products he tries to smooth it with. He takes in his angular features, the nose which is too large and veers off to one side from one break too many. His lips are plush and red, but chapped from the cold of a Brooklyn winter. His eyes stand out the most, before they are obscured by his glasses, sky blue and vivid against pale skin, his mother’s eyes. He scrubs a hand through his hair, and sighs, slipping on the thick black rims of his glasses, and looks away from the mirror.

He had heard once, that mirrors were portals to other worlds. When he was younger, when he’d first started visiting the meadow, he’d stood with his palm pressed against the mirror for hours, praying for it to give, to let him through, and whilst the glass had warmed to his touch, and his features had grown less familiar the more he’d gazed at himself, he’d never been let through. Always trapped on one side of the glass, no closer to the meadow. No closer to the companion who kept watch over him like an angel.

Breakfast, then.

The silver rustle of Pop Tarts, the ping of the toaster being set, the soft pop of pill containers clicking open, and the rush of ice cold water into a chipped mug. He took a sip of water, and pressed the pills into his hand, tipping them to the back of his mouth and swallowing hard. Another sip of water to wash them down, the bitter taste never quite chased away, and then the wait for the Pop Tarts to jolt upwards, the promise of a burnt tongue hidden within them.

As he broke the Pop Tarts into pieces over a plate and ate them carefully, he tried to plan the day ahead. A few commissions, a couple of pieces for his Patreon, a livestream, and maybe some time to catch up on Netflix if he was lucky. You see, it wasn’t that Steve was unsuccessful in the real world, not at all, he made a living and he enjoyed his work, but he was lonely.

Any therapist with an ounce of sense would tell him the man in his dreams was a substitute for the friends he lacked in the real world, a reaction to losing his mother so young, and a balm against the years of abuse school had afforded him. Perhaps he’d agree. But it couldn’t be just the imaginings of a lonesome mind, there had to be something more.

He didn’t seek out a therapist. He didn’t want to hear his meadow being ripped apart with logic and psychoanalysis. There was no need to rock the boat, to unsettle the waves of his quiet belief.

He understood the concept of denial, but he also understood that there were things beyond understanding. And that maybe, just maybe, he’d gotten very lucky and slipped into a between world, and that was okay.

Perhaps not healthy, but okay.

He settled down at his desk and booted up his computer. As it chugged into life, he got out his watercolour pad and paints and pencils, and ferried a small glass of water over. As his computer finally woke, he pulled up the reference pictures he’d found the night before, and began to sketch.

It was like going into a trance, working in silence bringing something to life on the paper. He was lucky to be talented, and lucky that his determination had pushed him further to develop his skills and to allow him to become the artist he was today. He still saw every flaw and mistake and fault, but he had the perspective to look back on his work a year ago and realise how much he’d grown. And as his art had matured, his audience had increased, allowing him a steady income and a certain freedom of choice in what he painted.

After four hours hunched over the drawing, his back was aching and his stomach protesting, so he stretched and wandered back through to the kitchen, scrounging for anything he could find. His cupboards were fairly bare, he knew his ma would be looking down at him and shaking her head fondly, but he had never quite figured out grocery shopping. He would wander to the store, buy what he needed in the immediate future, and forget that come two days’ time, he’d be doing it all over again. Thankfully he lived less than a block from the nearest bodega, so it wasn’t a hardship to trundle down and pick up some supplies.

Grabbing his coat and scarf, he bundled himself up and pulled his gloves on, before leaving the apartment and heading downstairs.

The air outside was brisk and stinging against his face, and the wind made it hard for him to breathe as he strode against it. His nose began to run and as he fumbled in his pocket for a tissue he accidentally caught the shoulder of a stranger. He tripped backwards a couple of steps, almost losing his balance, expecting a cussing out for not paying attention, but instead he looked up to find a man just staring at him, halted mid-step, a look of confusion on his face, eyebrows drawn together as though he was trying to figure out something very important indeed.

Steve stares back at the stranger, taking in chin length brown hair, grey eyes that reminded him of the cloudiest sky, and the awkward way the man stood, his right arm loose and easy, his left held tight to his body, hand shoved in his jeans pocket.

“I know you,” the man says. He shakes his head. Smiles to himself. “This is so stupid, but I know you.”

His voice is like coming home. Steve had never heard it before but he recognises it. It stabs him in the gut the same way waking up each morning did. He almost stumbles again. The man reaches out his right hand to steady Steve.

The touch is electric, even through Steve’s thick winter coat. His thoughts jar, and his vision scuds for a moment, unable to focus on anything. His eyes fix carefully on the stranger’s eyes. In an instant, Steve knows the stranger is not lying. They know each other. A dust mote flickers past Steve’s left eye, a rare glimpse of sun illuminating it. Steve is hit by a wave of déjà vu so strong it nearly forces him to crease at the middle.

“Do you ever have dreams?” Steve asks, his voice breaking and wavering. The stranger grips Steve’s shoulder tighter, and Steve sways under his firm grasp.

“Of course I know you,” the stranger breaks into a grin now, showing white teeth, lighting up his entire face. “You sleep in my meadow.”

Steve shrugs himself free, stepping backwards quickly.

He has never told anybody about the meadow. In a decade, it has been his most carefully guarded secret.

“I’m sorry – I have to go,” he manages, and turns away and all but runs back to his apartment. He can hear the man protesting behind him, but the protests get quieter, the man isn’t following him, and so Steve heads to his apartment and locks the door, double checking the bolt is slid home, before sliding down to the ground, his legs unable to hold him.

He can still feel the heat of the man’s grasp on his shoulder, even though the cold has long since snatched it away. He imagines a red hot bruise marring his skin, something so vivid and real and beautiful that it is impossible to ignore.

He is shaking, his breathing coming in tiny puffs, and his thoughts race too quickly for him to snare one and try to comprehend what just happened.

He wonders, if the man, the stranger, is indeed the guardian of his dreams, of his meadow, then he’d know what Steve was going to do next. Carefully, Steve gets to his feet, and goes to the medicine cupboard. He pops out a sleeping pill, and swallows it dry. They work fast on him, so he stumbles to his bedroom and falls into bed fully dressed, sleep insistent already, his eyelids drooping, and then, the blink of an eye between one world and another.

_The man stands before him, the same man, the same face, and for the first time Steve can see his features, the sharp lines of his cheekbones and jaw, the dusting of stubble on his cheeks, the way his hair falls in his eyes and he has to sweep it back behind his ears with his right hand. He smiles at Steve when he notices him, and gestures for him to come closer._

_“Words don’t flow so well in dreams,” the man says. “Things become garbled, not quite right. But you’re real. I knew you were. You’ve been visiting my meadow for a long time.”_

_It’s the same voice, the same homecoming. Steve takes another step closer. They are maybe a foot apart, if not a little less._

_“This is your meadow?” Steve asks. The dust motes float around them and the grass whispers._

_“Since I was a child. The same meadow, always. I had all my adventures here. Animals would come and go – I think it’s easier for them, I knew a tiger for a long time, she was old and the world had beaten her down, but here, she was free. This place is real, you know? As real as any other. It’s just not as easy to get to.”_

_“Am I the only person who’s ever been here?”_

_The man shakes his head. “People flicker in and out here, I think they have their own worlds and sometimes my meadow overlaps with theirs. You’re the only one who’s ever stayed. I’ve watched you for ten years, and you’ve always come back. I knew you were out there, somewhere, but – well, things are different in the meadow. It’s easier to be in the meadow. In real life – in real life there’s so much baggage, a fucking overwhelming amount if I’m honest. Here, it’s just this. A beautiful place, safe and there’s you. I thought – if I found you in the real world, it would be like it is in the meadow. But nothing ever is. I think, I think if the real world were like it is here, nobody would ever want anything else. The real world is a reminder to keep wanting more.”_

_Steve can’t help but smile a little at that. Waking up every morning with that certain ache of something important being missing. If that’s not a reminder, he doesn’t know what is._

_“I’ve never seen you clearly before,” Steve says._

_“This,” the man gestures widely with his right hand, his left still limp at his side, “I can kind of control to a degree. I never wanted to intrude, I knew you were aware of me, but I didn’t want to just wander into your dreams. You seem so content here. I didn’t want to ruin that for you.”_

_“How did you know I’d be here now?”_

_“You got home and immediately knocked yourself out, right?” The man asks._

_Steve nods._

_“Same. I just – I knew, because I would have done the exact same thing. You were spooked, in the street, I know, I shouldn’t have – I don’t know, it’s just, finally finding you, knowing for sure I hadn’t dreamt you up, and then, you ran and I understood, because I could feel it. There was something pulling us together, like a string wrapped around both of our little fingers, getting tighter and tighter, and it felt like – ”_

_“Home.”_

_The man looks at Steve and smiles wide._

_“Home. Yes. Exactly.”_

_“I’m sorry I ran,” Steve says, scuffing his feet in the grass._

_“You’re going to wake up soon,” the man says. “Time works differently here. I can feel it, like I’m losing you. You’re going to be exhausted when you wake up, people aren’t supposed to talk like this, we’re breaking all the rules. Please, eat something, and then find me. I’m – ”_

Steve wakes with a groan. He feels absolutely rotten, like he’s coming down with the flu or something worse. Not like he’s had a wink of sleep. The strands are already unravelling, but he can remember the man warning him he’d feel this way. Reluctantly, he pulls his body into a sitting position, and pulls his knees to his chest. Every muscle aches. He can feel the throb of a migraine starting.

The words of the dream are confused, almost nonsensical. What remains is more of fundamental, less describable, like the sensation of plunging his hands into a snow bank or tasting something for the first time. Like describing a colour to somebody. He knows it, but cannot put it into words.

The man, his silent guardian, has watched over him for ten years, willingly letting him into his meadow, and always taking care not to disturb Steve’s dreams. And he’s real. Real in a way that exists outside of the meadow.

And he was going to tell Steve how to find him.

And then Steve had woken up.

Steve is half tempted to go back to the kitchen and take another sleeping pill, but he knows that would be a dumb thing to do. Instead he half falls out of bed, and makes his way to the bathroom, stripping off his clothes as he goes, turning the shower to hot, before standing under it for a very long time, letting the water beat against his skull until it starts to go cold.

All the time, he wonders to himself, _how do you find the man of your dreams?_

And then, because the modern world is absurd, the answer flits through his brain. _Craigslist_.

Sitting down in front of his computer screen, Steve tries to come up with a title for his ad which isn’t totally ridiculous, but will still catch the man’s attention.

**missed connections << m4m << Feb 28 << I met you in our meadow**

_I thought I’d dreamt you up until I bumped into you today. Now I know you’re real, I need to talk to you. You’ve been a huge part of my life for a long time, and I don’t want that to change. You were going to tell me how to find you, but then I woke up. If you still want to know me in this life, please contact me. If not, thank you, so much, for letting me into your world. Thank you._

Steve posts the advert before he can think twice, and sits back in his chair. His stomach is loud and angry, so he pads through to the kitchen and searches his bare cupboards and fridge for something other than Pop Tarts. He is seriously considering just boiling some pasta and eating it plain when his phone pings. Tilting it upwards, he sees he has a new email. He presses his thumb to the home button to wake it, and opens the email quickly, his finger skidding slightly as he sees it’s from Craigslist.

_Hi,_

_I still don’t know what to call you. I should have asked. It’s like I said, speech in the meadow doesn’t work like real life. It’s more instinctive, but you lose half of what you wanted to say. And then you wake up and lose even more. I hope you’ve eaten something, I know I woke up feeling like shit. I want to know you, I feel like I already do, but dreams aren’t reality and reality isn’t dreams and the meadow is one facet of something much bigger. That we met today can’t have been an accident. I don’t believe in fate, but I do believe in you. I’ve been looking for you every day for ten years. I think this is something important, you know? It’s not an accident, it can’t be. Please, if you can, meet me at Prospect Park tomorrow at 10am. I’ll be wearing a Hufflepuff scarf. I really hope you get that reference. I’m pretty sure you will. I’ll be by the lake._

_You’re beautiful, I hope you know. I’ve watched you for a long time, but in real life, you’re so much more. I hope you can bear to be around a schmuck like me._

_Bucky (I never did tell you my name, did I?)_

Steve slides the email back to the top and reads it again. Then again. The man has a name. _Bucky_. And Steve bets there’s a story behind that, and he can’t wait to hear it. He wants to reply immediately, but his stomach growls again, so he opens Just Eat and quickly orders something from the local Chinese, tapping something randomly, and then clicking through the payment screen without even checking the price.

Nothing seems important right now, not money, not food, just _Bucky_. The knowledge that Bucky is real and wants to meet him. That Bucky called him beautiful. Steve can’t begin to comprehend, and maybe he doesn’t want to. The weight he has been carrying for ten years is starting to lighten, and instead of the ache there is anticipation.

Bucky has been the love of his life, and Steve is only just realising it now. He grins, wide and daft, before slumping back in his chair. Just because he loves Bucky, doesn’t mean Bucky has to love him.

But.

He just might.

He remembers his livestream and posts a notice on his tumblr to postpone it. He couldn’t focus on anything right now if he tried. Instead his hand inches towards the watercolour pad, and pulls it towards him, his other hand grabbing a pencil. He begins to sketch, the planes of Bucky’s face burnt into his memory, lines creating themselves on the page with an ease he’s never found before, and it is only the second ring of his doorbell that jolts him out of his drawing, that gets him out of his chair and allows him to fetch his takeaway from a grumpy delivery boy.

He eats it, but doesn’t taste it. He couldn’t even tell you what he ordered.

He throws the waste away, and after shutting his computer down, he slouches through to the bathroom to get ready for bed. He looks in the mirror, gazing into his own eyes, his glasses off, and just for a second, he thinks he sees Bucky standing behind him. A blink, and he’s gone.

He tumbles into bed, pulling the blankets around him, and waits for sleep to take him. In the dark of the room, he can imagine Bucky curled up beside him, an arm around Steve’s waist, and he smiles. Maybe, possibly, perhaps, if the universe is kind and generous, he could have that for real. He falls asleep still smiling.

_Bucky is sitting cross-legged under a tree when Steve arrives at the meadow. He has a daisy tucked behind one ear, and his feet are bare. He looks up as Steve approaches, and smiles._

_“I still don’t know your name.”_

_“Steve.”_

_Bucky grins wider, and cocks his head to one side. “Yeah, I think you’re a Steve.”_

_“Can I sit?” Steve gestures to the grass beside Bucky. Bucky scoots over a bit and nods to his left. His left hand is in his pocket again, and Steve wants to ask, but it’s not his place to pry._

_Instead, he sits, in the same position as Bucky, and his knee brushes against Bucky’s. Instead of shying away from the contact, Bucky drops his own knee a little, strengthening the touch._

_“I can’t believe you’re real. I mean, I knew you were, but the odds of actually meeting you were – I tried to work them out once, but how do you work something like that out? I have a head for math, but even so,” Bucky says, bouncing his knee slightly so it rubs against Steve’s._

_“Did you make this place?” Steve asks. He feels like Bucky knows more about this meadow than he does. It belongs to Bucky, after all._

_“When I was a child. I – I was in hospital for a long time. A car accident. I lost my arm.” He looks down at his left shoulder. “I’ve seen you looking, it’s okay. I should be more comfortable with it by now, but I’m not. People always think, if they talk to me, that I’m a veteran, that I did something brave and honourable to lose it. Instead it was just some idiot who ran a red light and killed my family, mom, dad and Rebecca. She was three years old. I was five._

_“The hospital room I was in had this meadow painted on the walls, a mural, you know? I spent so many hours just staring at it, as adults talked over me and about me but never to me. It started showing up in my dreams, and I realised I’d made it real. When I got out of hospital, they put me into foster care, and I started to read._

_“I read so much, about dreams, parallel universes, portals to other realities. Six years old and I was trying to read Stephen Hawking’s book. I didn’t understand much, but I knew that the meadow was special. That not everybody had a meadow, or something like a meadow. But that reality was flexible, mirrors, paintings, dreams, they all had a capacity to open up, and to allow you to step through if you needed it enough. Like I said, animals would come and go, they were normally old, or abandoned, but in the meadow they played like they were still young and happy. The people that visited always stayed just out of sight. Overlap, I call it._

_“And then there was you. I found you dozing in my meadow and you looked so small. I thought you must be so young, much younger than me. I didn’t want to disturb you, you weren’t like the animals, you didn’t want to talk to me, I don’t think for a long time you realised I was there at all. I know the day you did realise, I thought maybe you’d catch my eye, but you never did. And that was okay. I was happy just to watch. The meadow is huge, so you were never in my way. I was happy to share it, happy it was helping someone else. Though I knew if you were there that meant something bad had happened to you.”_

_Bucky looks down, and Steve wishes he could take Bucky’s hand. Instead, he places a hand on Bucky’s knee. Bucky looks at him, and raises an eyebrow. It’s meant in jest, and Steve smiles a little sadly._

_“I found the meadow after my ma died. I thought it was just a dream at first, I thought you were just a dream at first. But after a while I realised it was too real to just be a dream, that it didn’t feel like any dream I’d ever had before. And I knew you must exist too. I woke up every morning, and you haunted me. I didn’t know how to find you, I could never see your face. But I felt safe, like you were a protector, a guardian. You’ve been the only friend I’ve had for so long, Bucky. And I’ve only just found out your name.”_

_“I’m sorry. For your ma, for everything. If I’d have realised we were so close I would have tried harder. But for what it’s worth, I’m glad we’ve found each other now.”_

_Steve tightened his grip on Bucky’s knee._

_“Me too. I think I’ve loved you for ten years.” He daren’t look at Bucky, but he could feel Bucky shifting beside him, and when he looked up, Bucky was reaching out with his right hand to cup Steve’s face._

_“You have to be careful in your dreams, Stevie. Your tongue is a lot looser than in real life. It’s like being drunk. But for what it’s worth, ditto. I love you. I don’t think I realised how much until I found out I could actually be with you. If you wanted that, I mean,” Bucky says, rubbing his thumb across Steve’s cheekbone._

_Steve covers Bucky’s hand with his own, feeling the warmth seeping into his skin. He lets their fingers twine together naturally, before looking into Bucky’s eyes._

_“I do, I want that. I hardly know you, but I want that,” he says sincerely. “It can be real, can’t it? Us? We can be real?”_

_“We can be real, Stevie. Tomorrow. I’ll meet you in Prospect Park by the lake, and we’ll be real.”_

_“I think I’m going to wake up,” Steve realises. “I don’t want to leave you.”_

_“You’re not. You’ve only just found me,” Bucky promises._

_“Hey,” Steve says, on the brink of consciousness, “were you in my mirror last night?”_

_Bucky barks out a laugh._

_“The world is full of portals, Stevie. I just wanted to see if I could. Did I scare you?”_

_Steve shakes his head._

_“No, I’ve been looking for you there for years.”_

Steve wakes up and expects the ache of loss out of habit. It’s missing. In its place is an array of butterflies flitting around his stomach. Anticipation. Bucky. Prospect Park. The hope of something. A beginning.

He showers and dresses and eats in a blur of barely thought out actions, on autopilot, pausing only to check the mirror for any sign of Bucky. His own reflection stares back, and he wonders if Bucky could see him. Has ever seen him. He blushes.

He catches the subway, not minding the crowds for the first time in his life, walking through the bustle in a daze, every second bringing him closer to Bucky, and the cold air outside doesn’t sting like it usually does, it sharpens him, makes him more alert, drags him into the real world. Where he needs to be. It’s time to stop dreaming. Bucky is waiting.

Prospect Park is big, but Steve has been there before and knows how to head straight to the lake. Sitting on the grass is a man in a fitted dark grey woollen coat, a yellow and black scarf wrapped around his neck. Steve looks closer and notices the left arm is empty, dangling loosely by the man’s side.

As if Bucky can feel him looking, he turns. His face lights up immediately, and he pushes himself upright, before striding towards Steve. Steve quickens his pace. They end up too close, too close by far, and Bucky’s eyes flick down to Steve’s lips, and Steve looks up at him, a dare in his eyes, and Bucky leans down and presses his mouth to Steve’s, wrapping his arm around Steve’s waist and pulling him close, and it’s like being engulfed, like drowning, only Steve never wants to come up for air, because this is _home_ , this is everything he’s been looking for, and as his lips move against Bucky’s and he tastes strawberry lip balm, he can’t help but smile.

He wraps his arms around Bucky’s neck and presses their foreheads together, breathing heavily.

“Tell me this isn’t a dream,” he murmurs against Bucky’s cheek. Bucky nuzzles him back.

“Stevie, if it is, I don’t ever want to wake up,” he replies.

The sun filters through the clouds, catching the dust motes floating around them, but Steve doesn’t see, because he’s kissing Bucky again, and it’s everything. It’s everything.

He strokes the soft downy hairs on Bucky’s nape with his thumb, pushing the scarf out of the way, and revels in sensation.

Bucky pulls away slightly.

“I do. Love you. So much,” he gasps, his mouth catching Steve’s as he talks.

“I do, full stop. In sickness and in health. Forever. Can we have that?” Steve replies, breathless.

“You’re always going to one-up me, aren’t you, Stevie?” Bucky chuckles.

“Problem?” Steve grins and presses another kiss against Bucky’s lips.

“You’re the man of my dreams. How many people get to say that?” Bucky rubs his nose against Steve’s. Steve huffs out a laugh.

“What a story for the grandkids.”

“What do we do now? I mean – where do we go from here? I hardly know you, but it seems like I’ve known you forever. Does that make sense?” Bucky asks.

“Well, I’ve already proposed marriage, so, maybe we could get lunch?” Steve smirks.

Bucky presses a kiss to the corner of Steve’s mouth. Steve moves to catch it and deepen it.

“Bucky, whatever happens now, I want you to know, I wouldn’t change this for the world. Right here, right now. If we’re married for fifty years, or if we break up next week. This world – ” he nods at the park around them, “I don’t think it works like dreams. But I think it could.”

“I think it could too.”

“Tell me this is real,” Steve smiles around the words, capturing Bucky’s mouth again. Bucky falls into the kiss before pulling away, resting his forehead against Steve’s.

“We’re real, Stevie. We’re real. This is real.”

“I know. I love you. I’m so glad I found you.”

“Do you think we’ll lose the meadow?”

Steve pauses, and Bucky stills too.

“I don’t know,” Steve says carefully. “Would you – if this takes the meadow away, it’s up to you. If you’d rather have the meadow I understand.”

Bucky pulls Steve closer still.

“No, I just think, the meadow is a healing place. And I think, I think finally, I don’t need it any more. I don’t think it’s an accident it let you in. I think it knew. I was meant to find you. All along. It’s looked after me for twenty years. I think maybe – maybe it’s time to let it go. It’s a dream. This is real.”

“Okay,” Steve says simply.

“Okay,” Bucky repeats back to him. He holds Steve tight, and Steve imagines he can feel Bucky’s heart beating through the wool of his coat. He catches the dust motes out of the corner of his eye, blinks, and then they’re gone as the sun disappears behind a cloud.

“This is real.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at transbucky.tumblr.com if you want to, or in your dreams if that's more convenient for you.


End file.
